The design of the Panther armour is for 'immunity' to frontal fire (arguably successful with the Glacis on introduction, but the turret front/mantlet design was weaker than it could have been).
The hull was supposed to be 'aimed' directly at the enemy positions, with slope providing the protection. The side hull was only to keep out very oblique fire from the front.
The Tiger had thicker, but unsloped (more-or-less) armour that required the driver to position the threat onto the forward quarters (the armour was penetrable if struck directly at fairly long ranges). The all-round protection averaged rather better than the Panther, but frontal protection was not quite as good - huge overmatching calibres and reducing quality control for the later war production may have eroded this somewhat by war's end.
Both tanks were bigger and heavier than they should have been - a rear drive/transmission would have lowered the hull, possibly shortened it, and would have made maintaining the drivetrain of the Panther a lot easier. Either the lowered bulk could have been used to reduce overall weight, improving further the good trafficability of both tanks or it could have allowed some improvement to side protection on the Panther...
The Panther is far more important though - replacing PzIV and Pz III vehicles on a 1:1 basis rather than as insignificant numbers of heavy tanks thrown into increasingly desperate (though surprisingly successful) 'limited' offensives and rear-guard actions.
The Panther is far closer to all the 'modern' tanks than the Tiger - it just needs some improvements and a bit of a diet to make it better... I might go with keeping the armour the same, but making it as small/smaller than a PzIV, rather than trying for a mini-Tiger Ausf B... but I think we know that this what would have happened to it if they had made a rear transmission version.
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